Frank A Bicknell (1866-1943)

Frank A Bicknell (1866-1943)

Born in Augusta, Maine, Frank Alfred Bicknell moved to Malden, Massachusetts, and first studied art with Albion Harris Bicknell, who is believed to be a second cousin. He also explored the artists’ colonies sprinkled throughout New England, making painting trips to Cape Ann and Annisquam on Massachusetts’ North Shore, as well as Old Lyme, Connecticut, where he first set foot in 1902 and spent most of his career. Bicknell was fully immersed in the American art scene, becoming an Associate of the National Academy in 1913 and joining the National Arts Club, the Salmagundi Club, and the Lotus Club. He took part in annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Boston Art Club, among other venues, and also spent six years as an Associate Professor at the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University).

Like many artists of his generation, he decided to round out his education abroad and went to Paris in 1890, where he enrolled at the Académie Julian under William Adolphe Bouguereau and Robert Fleury. He returned to the United States by 1894 and resided at the Salmagundi Club in New York City before moving to the famous Stanford White-designed Tower at Madison Square Garden.

An inveterate traveler, Bicknell made several trips to Japan during the 1890s and returned to Paris every spring until 1903, exhibiting at the Salon from 1897 to 1901. He also explored the artists’ colonies sprinkled throughout New England, making painting trips to Cape Ann and Annisquam on Massachusetts’ North Shore, as well as Old Lyme, Connecticut, where he first set foot in 1902 and spent most of his career. He established a close friendship with the colony’s major benefactor, Florence Griswold, and spent many evenings at the Griswold house in the company of other Old Lyme artists, including Willard Metcalf, Childe Hassam, and Walter Griffin. As a lifelong bachelor, Bicknell considered Old Lyme’s tightknit coterie of American Impressionists his family, and eventually retired there before passing away in 1943.